Two-thirds of Indians have antibodies shows ICMR survey
- July 21, 2021
- Posted by: OptimizeIAS Team
- Category: DPN Topics
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Two-thirds of Indians have antibodies shows ICMR survey
Subject: Science & tech
Context: The fourth national COVID-19 sero survey conducted by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).
Concept:
- As per the sero-survey, two-thirds of the population aged above six have antibodies against SARS-CoV-2.
- The survey also found that more than half of the children (6-17 years) were seropositive.
- Though the survey offered a ray of hope in the fight against the pandemic, there was no room for complacency given that nearly 40 crore people, or a third of the population, are still vulnerable to the COVID-19 infection.
Serological survey
- The serological survey was meant to detect whether the person being tested had developed antibodies against the coronavirus.
- Since it is not possible to test everyone, detecting antibodies in random sets of people is an indirect way of estimating the extent of disease spread in a community.
- The antibodies are proteins produced by the immune system to fight external organisms like viruses that try to enter the body.
- These are produced only after the infection has happened, and are specific to the attacking virus or bacterium.
- The presence of antibodies, therefore, is an indication that an infection by that particular virus or bacterium has already occurred.
- Subsequent attempts to infect the body can be thwarted by these antibodies.
What about Vaccines then?
- Vaccines work in a similar manner – wherein they inject harmless doses of a virus or a bacterium inside the human body to trigger the production of antibodies by the immune system.
- These antibodies can then fight off an actual attack by those viruses or bacteria.
Herd Immunity
- Herd immunity is a stage of an epidemic in which some members of a population group remain protected from infection because a majority of those around them have already developed immunity, either through vaccination or because they have been infected earlier.
- Once a certain proportion of population gets infected, and thus builds immunity against the disease, the epidemic begins to slow down and eventually stop.
- No one clearly knows what percentage of the population needs to be infected before herd immunity kicks in. It is different for different diseases, and different population groups.